Bangladesh has emerged as the most industrialised nation in the South Asia, toppling India.
"We have topped the list of the most industrial nations in the region," said Mahmudur Rahman, executive chairman of the Board of Investment, citing a World Bank report.
The private sector investment, as per BOI estimate, is expected to reach Tk 680 billion at the end of the current financial year.
Citing the WB report, BOI Executive Chairman Mahmudur Rahman said industry contributed 28 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) last year in Bangladesh, which is up by two percentage points from India and five percentage points from Pakistan.
"There are indications that we are going to achieve a double digit industrial growth within the next two years," Mahmud said, after emerging from a roundtable on "Implementing Regulatory Reform," where he was the chairperson at the closing session.
Held at a city hotel Tuesday, the roundtable discussed ways to cut bureaucratic red tapes to speed up development and alleviate poverty in South Asia, where majority of the world's poorest people live.
The BOI executive chairman, however, acknowledged that in absolute terms India is much ahead than Bangladesh since it has a wide range of industrial units.
Mahmud said the private sector investment would reach a record Tk 680 billion at the end of this financial year, which would mean a rise by Tk 89 billion.
"We are having 8.5 per cent growth in industrial sector and this figure would touch 10 per cent by 2007," the Executive Chairman of BOI noted.
Mahmud said private sector investment would constitute 18.5 per cent of the GDP at the end of this financial year and might reach 20 per cent quite soon.
"We should not be complacent about the high industrial growth. The reality is that we have limitations for agricultural growth, because of very low amount of per capita land," he said.
He said farming is also often prone to floods and other natural calamities.
"To achieve a sound growth and to remove poverty significantly, we have to achieve 35 per cent industrial growth," the BOI executive chairman observed.
He said Bangladesh is gradually becoming an attractive destination for foreign direct investment (FDI) in the region and that the country might fetch US $ 800 million in FDI at the end of the year 2005.

I'm sure this guy misinterpreted or sensationalized the data. What he is pointing at here is in terms of the component of GDP coming from the Industrial sector, we are ahead of India & Pakistan. India & Pakistan probably have larger components of their GDP contributing from Agri or other sectors.

The BOI chairman obviously over-generalised the data. However, the numbers may just be correct. This does not mean that our total Industrial production is higher than some other SE countries. Only, the ratio of our GDP coming from the industrial sector may be higher than others.

I believe it is very much possible, In fact I agree with the assertion. Despite all her political unrest, rivalries, corruption, law and order debacles, economy in bangladesh has been steadily growing. It is going on over that last 15 years and any specific political party does not have a greater role in it.
Bangladesh has a huge population, a growing middle class who are spending more and more and an infinite source of cheap labor. A big consumer class and abundant cheap labor is a golden combination and nobody can stop the economic growth in this context.

Originally posted by mwrkhan
I think we probably are (got to look it up). The poorest list would contain countries like Afghanistan, Somalia and Sudan etc., countries that are racked by war so at least they have an excuse.

we are number 1 in the top ten corrupted nations in the world....i can assure you that............

....but anywayz, alteast we made it to some record other than cricket....

the fact that the we a excellent source of cheap labour can get us a great deal ahead if we use it properly....

in history class the other day, we were studying nazi Germany and was saying there that when the nazis came to power, the unemployment was 6 million and soaring...

what hitler did was merely provide labour camps called RAD or sth and those workers got some work in construction and infrastructures like roads and bridges with both some modest salary and benefits like holiday packages and etc.

bangladesh can follow the same path.....it will help a lot in our economy and build better infrastructure...